topic Re: Split by Features Tool creating holes in polygon dataset in ArcGIS Pro Questions

Split by Features Tool creating holes in polygon dataset

bw0093 — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 19:48:16 GMT

I'm having trouble with the Split by Features tool in ArcGIS Pro. When I use my impervious polygon data to split the target features (also polygons), it creates holes in my dataset. Has anyone run into this before and/or know how to troubleshoot it? I ran the Check/Repair Geometry on both datasets and those appear to be clean now. I've also checked the domains, as that seems to be another source of error for others, but the only one I've seen is in my Input feature and the Split policy is set to duplicate. There are no definition queries on either dataset as well.

Any help with this would be much appreciated!! 🙏

Re: Split by Features Tool creating holes in polygon dataset

Scott_Harris — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 16:03:33 GMT

@bw0093 do you have an example of the how the input and target geometries look? Are they multipart features? Do they contain donuts/islands?

Also, which version of Pro are you using?

Re: Split by Features Tool creating holes in polygon dataset

bw0093 — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 18:29:15 GMT

@Scott_Harris I'm currently running on version 3.6.1

I have two layers that I can attach examples of. This impervious layer I'm using is a single feature, and the land cover layer I'm trying to split is a multipart feature with 6 individual features.

Re: Split by Features Tool creating holes in polygon dataset

Scott_Harris — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 21:14:37 GMT

Thanks @bw0093 . It's possible that you are running into this geometry bug in 3.6: https://support.esri.com/en-us/bug/features-are-deleted-when-running-the-split-editing-too-bug-000181708

The status is fixed in the next release. I think it will be also be fixed in the next 3.6 patch (3.6.2). You can contact Esri Technical Support to confirm and track the status.